The Brides of Rollrock Island Quotes

“How different other families were, the shape of them, the things they presumed, the children that grew up in them.”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island

“I felt freed to please myself, to find my way as I would, in a world that was much vaster than I had realized before, in which I was but one star-gleam, one wavelet, among multitudes. My happiness mattered not a whit more than the next person's - or the next fish's, or the next grass-blade's! - and not a whit less.”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island

“It was one thing not to want a husband, I realized; it was quite another not to need one for the roof over your head, for your meat and bread, for the shoes on your feet and the coat on your back.”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island

“Why must we climb away to the seal-less parts of the world?”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island

“I had know it and never known it.”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island

“He was fine, and foreign, and he did not belong here. I held him close, not crushing, not waking him, letting him sleep, and I suffered. I had never felt such feelings before. I would do anything for him; I would do anything. Anything that was asked of me, that would increase his happiness or health, I would do, and willingly. So I told myself, rocking him, the winter sky white at the window.”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island

“as if the world were a pot on the boil and someone had taken its lid off and let the steam pour up wildly.”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island

“And then she fell, from standing, foot-fins together, straight into the wavelets, where she was now seal, and she flung herself down toward the deeper water.”
― Margo Lanagan, The Brides of Rollrock Island